Tea Party Madness: Taxes as Slavery. The lunatic-right candidate for U.S. Senator from Alabama Rick Barber has been putting out video ads that do more than verge on insurrection against the duly constituted authority of the United States. He has advocated that opponents of the current Administration "gather [their] armies". As Keith Olbermann said of that, legal authorities in Alabama should arrest him for sedition.+Now Barber has gone even farther, suggesting that taxes are slavery, and that no one owes anyone anything. He asks why one person should have to pay taxes to help strangers. He misrepresents paying taxes as "one man working involuntarily for another", and thus "slavery". He uses an actor playing Abraham LINCOLN to denounce that. In Alabama, one of the states that attempted to secede because it hated Lincoln. And he says that 'we shed a lot of blood to get rid of slavery' — in Alabama, which shed a lot of blood to KEEP slavery!+Let us consider the idea that taxation, even with representation, is slavery. How, pray, is any government to do anything at all without taxation? Is Barber, who is running for a seat in a GOVERNMENT, saying that government should not exist?+Barber plainly doesn't understand the concept of the "social compact", the idea that people in society do not live lawlessly but join together to establish governments and laws to regulate conduct, and to provide services that the individual cannot provide for himself. For instance, if Mr. Barber is involved in a serious automobile accident in most urban areas, his life will depend on EMS workers paid by the local government to extricate him from a mass of crumpled metal, provide first aid, and transport him to a hospital, where yet other people will try to save his (worthless) life. These are all, Mr. Barber would have you believe, illegitimate impositions upon other people that he should not have to pay for.+Oh, he may pretend that all his medical services are paid for by an insurance plan that he personally pays for, but that is an illusion. Every insurance pool takes money from one person to benefit another. In the time before his accident, Barber will pay premiums that are then paid out in the form of benefits to other members of that insurance pool. At and after his accident, other people's premiums will be paid out to benefit him. The labor they expend to earn the money for those benefits means, logically speaking, that one man (or woman) he doesn't know — a stranger — is working for him. Thus he is a slaver, no?+If Barber does not maintain health insurance, but consents to pay all his medical costs, which in an extremely serious accident could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, he is still imposing upon other people to work for him, except that they are expected to work NOW for the promise of payment LATER. And what if he can't afford to pay them later? Who DOES pay for his emergency care now? The taxpayer, that's who. Because we are a society, not just a collection of individuals who happen to live alongside each other. We take care of each other. And to do that, we accept certain impositions, be they taxes or insurance premiums that go to other members of the insurance pool, or something else.+But the Libertarian Radical Right pretends that they don't need anybody, and they have the right to keep everything they "earn". Mind you, they can "earn" it only because OTHER people created the businesses that employ them, and built the roads and buildings and electrical distribution and communications systems that those businesses rely upon — and could not exist without — and many of those things were built by GOVERNMENT, which could not do that except thru TAXES.+Nor could Mr. Barber's possessions rest safe in his home were it not for police and fire departments funded by TAXES. Absent police forces — and the courts and prisons behind potential arrest, all paid for by taxes — Barber could be robbed at home by a gunman who surprised him before he could reach for his own gun, and shoot him dead if he tried to get to his own gun. Even if thieves were not willing to risk his having a gun when he's home, the second he drives around the corner, they could break in and steal him blind.+The Federal Government is charged with national defense, to stop foreign armies from marching in and subjecting Mr. Barber and his ilk to tyranny or genocide. The Federal Government is also tasked with keeping out the 100 million people from other countries across the Third World who would love to come into this country and take Barber's job away by working cheap. How can Immigration and Customs Enforcement do its job without taxes?+And how can government keep, for instance, television working properly if the FCC did not restrict who can use a given wavelength in a given place? Or control how many people can have the same telefone number? Or do anything else to maintain good order? How could we have traffic lites without taxes? Without traffic lites, people would be taking their lives into their hands every time they entered an intersection.+The Radical Right/Libertarian extremists are out of their minds in talking idiocy about taxation equating with slavery, and everyone should unite loudly to denounce all such loose talk. The voters of Alabama should trounce Rick Barber and offer some responsible, sensible candidate in his place.+(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,408 — for Israel.)

When Did Keith Olbermann Lose His Mind? It is infuriating when an intelligent Liberal makes a fool of himself, and takes stances that are not just inexcusably stupid but also completely at odds with Liberal values. Keith Olbermann, one of the most outspoken and important voices for Liberalism in the United States, disgraced himself last nite in arguing that President Obama should decline General Stanley McChrystal's resignation and keep him on — so we could, somehow, recognize the folly of remaining in the "morass" that Afghanistan has become, declare victory, and pull out. McChrystal wants to STAY in Afghanistan, and INCREASE troop levels to enable us to do the very "nation-building" that Olbermann opposes. So why would Olbermann want to keep in Afghanistan a general who stands for the exact opposite of what he claims to want? That's just insane.+Moreover, Olbermann criticized the Bush Administration for firing generals who opposed the Administration's POLICIES, and compared that to Obama's temptation to fire McChrystal for MOCKING the President, Vice President, and two U.S. Ambassadors PERSONALLY, even while agreeing with the President's policy of destroying the Taliban and with it a future refuge and training center for a revivified Al-Qaeda if the U.S. runs with its tail between its legs, DEFEATED by Islamist extremism. The comparison is absolutely false, and for Olbermann not to understand that the one thing (advice on policy) has nothing to do with the other (disrespect of civilian authority) is appalling.+Does Olbermann think it would be a good thing for the United States and other nations of the West if the Taliban were to win in Afghanistan, then invite Al-Qaeda and other extremists to train on Afghan territory, with the active assistance of the triumphant Taliban, to attack U.S. and other Western interests all over the planet?+Does Olbermann think it would be a good thing for the state of human rights on planet Earth to permit enemies of all modern conceptions of human rights to return to power in Afghanistan, close schools to girls, return Afghan women to abject slavery to male privilege, end freedom of the press, religion, speech, assembly, and every other human right, and start executing homosexual men again? What the hell is wrong with him?+Let us review. The belief (albeit pooh-poohed by some people with an anti-U.S. ax to grind) is that Al-Qaeda became an effective transnational terrorist organization, capable of launching attacks upon U.S. interests in Africa, the Arabian peninsula, New York City, and Washington, DC, thru intensive training and indoctrination IN AFGHANISTAN, with the complicity if not actual financial and military assistance of the Taliban government then in power. This was when the Taliban had NOT yet made any effort to, itself, launch attacks upon the United States. Now, the Taliban regards the U.S. as the very devil himself, and is dedicated at least to destroying the United States as a world power, and possibly to killing Americans anywhere they can be found. Keith Olbermann is fine with that? Oh, sure, let the Taliban return to power. What harm could they possibly do? Idiocy.+But that idiocy is synthetic, because Keith Olbermann is not an actual idiot but an intelligent man who has allowed some incomprehensible emotional impulse — what? pacifist? anti-militarist? what?! — to make him see U.S. interests and human rights worldwide as being best served by allowing the most regressive, anti-human-rights government in modern times to regain control of Afghanistan, a country in which a TRILLION DOLLARS in mineral wealth has recently been found. A triumphant Taliban would rule over not an impoverished country incapable of launching attacks at all far from its borders, but a mining powerhouse, whose income from exploitation of minerals would give Taliban operatives, or proxies, worldwide reach.+A triumphant Taliban wouldn't even need immediate worldwide reach to be a horrendous threat to this planet. They need merely train and finance Islamists of like dogma to overthrow the government of adjoining Pakistan, and thus gain control of NUCLEAR WEAPONS.+I cannot understand how any Liberal / "Progressive" could think for even one second of permitting the Taliban to return to oppress 30 million people, and recruit (from within and without), train, and dispatch thousands, even tens of thousands of mujahedeen to attack the United States and other Western countries, such as the NATO countries that sent soldiers to Afghanistan. Did he bump his head? Did a foul ball hit him on the noggin as he sat in a baseball park? I am at a loss to understand. I hope sanity returns to Mr. Olbermann soon, and he completely retracts his remarks of last nite and completely changes his stance on withdrawal from Afghanistan.+Meanwhile, I can at least rest relieved that President Obama did not heed Olbermann's advice, but took the same stance as I did, yesterday: that McChrystal had to go.+(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,408 — for Israel.)

President Obama needs to fire General McChrystal. A damning profile in Rolling Stone magazine, of Stanley McChrystal, the general in charge of U.S. operations in Afghanistan, reveals a man who holds civilian control of the military in contempt, and speaks openly of his disdain for the President, the Vice President, and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. This is unforgivable. He MUST be fired.+Harry Truman faced this kind of insubordination from Douglas MacArthur, and FIRED MacArthur. President Obama must equally fire McChrystal. No two ways about it.+Louisianans Sue to Resume Offshore Drilling! What is it about the South that has produced a calamitous proportion of mental defectives? Louisiana, devastated and increasingly to BE devastated by a catastrophic accident in deep-sea offshore oil drilling, thru its childlike moron of a governor, is actually suing to overturn the Obama Administration's six-month moratorium on more such drilling. What the f*k is wrong with them? Don't they realize that the VERY NEXT WELL drilled under current regulations could ALSO explode? And the one after than, and the one after that?+The technology is inherently unsafe, and NO economic benefit justifies the risk to the environment, more than to the local economy of one of the mental-defective states of the Deep South. The Federal Government has an absolute RIGHT to END such oil drilling, not just impose a moratorium, because it is PLAINLY inherently dangerous. Oil companies do not have the right to use unsafe technologies that cause catastrophic devastation to TRILLIONS of sea creatures, wetland creatures, the Gulf Coast fishing industry, the tourist industry, and the health of people not just in Louisiana but everywhere the unleashed oil might flow. No judge has the right to undo the decisions of the President and Secretary of the Interior when it comes to what national resources are to be developed in what manner. The fact that oil companies need PERMITS to drill shows plainly that the right to give OR WITHHOLD such permits is WHOLLY within Federal power, so unless CONGRESS passes legislation, over the President's veto if need be, the Federal Government, as guardian of the resources, livelihood, and health of the Nation's people, animals, and plants, has the right to withhold any damned permit it may wish, and no judge has the right to intervene.+How is it that "conservatives" like Bobby Jindal, the retarded governor of Louisiana, detest "activist judges" but call upon a judge now to act in precisely the way that conservatives pretend to detest?+If Jindal's stance is widely held among Louisianans, I am very tempted to urge that all Federal assistance in stopping escaped oil from reaching Louisiana's shores should be ended. All outsiders thinking of volunteering to help clean up in Louisiana should cancel their plans or reroute to Florida or some other place that isn't filled to overflowing with sh*theads. You want the free market to govern? Fine. I want to say "Live with the consequences, without our help: not one dollar of our money, not one second of our time." But no, we are not going to let rednecks and their Indian puppet endanger US, nor pelicans, fish, shrimp, crabs, and other creatures elsewhere than Louisiana. Indeed, not even in Louisiana.+Responsible adults don't allow tiny children or mental defectives to play with matches, or guns. The current idiot governor of Louisiana has no say in the disposition of FEDERAL oil-drilling permits. Shut up and clean up, you stupid, stupid little hypocrite.+(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,407  for Israel.)

Toyota Forgotten. Who else has noticed that BP has knocked Toyota completely out of the news?+Not long ago, pack journalism was all aflutter about Toyota cars that were accelerating uncontrollably, killing people. How long has it been since we've heard so much as one word about that?+Where is the followup? Were the fixes made by Toyota in recalls completely adequate? Early reports indicated that there might still be problems. But we haven't heard a thing about Toyotas' unintended acceleration for, what? 58 days?+When will U.S. media stop talking about one thing at a time, and cover all bases, on all days? What has been neglected in this pack-journalism excessive coverage of one story at the expense of all others? During the 58 days of the BP oil spill, there has been horrendous ethnic-cleansing in Kyrgyzstan; massive drug-related murder in Mexico, including the death of a major pop singer; a debt crisis in Greece and Spain threatening the whole Eurozone; protest and violent repression in Thailand; and a hundred other major stories that U.S. English-language networks simply have not covered, either at all or in more than two sentences per story.+It is useful to be able to get the gist of news in Spanish, because the two U.S. Spanish-language television networks don't have the same small list of stories that U.S. English-language networks cover, all from the Associated Press list of the day's top stories. Thousands of people are being murdered each year in Mexico because of U.S. drug users, all of whom should be prosecuted for terrorism, but U.S. English-language media scarcely touch upon the story. It's also useful to have TV news shows from BBC, France 24, and Deutsche Welle, as we have in the NY Tristate Metropolitan Area, over-air, not just on cable. If you listen only to U.S. English-language news broadcasts, you hear almost nothing about anything but a very few top stories. Right now it's the oil spill and World Cup. Immediately before the World Cup, it was almost all oil spill, all the time. So, whatever did happen with Toyota repairs? I have no idea.+(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,406 — for Israel.)

Soak the Rich — All States, Simultaneously. States and municipalities all across the Nation are so severely strapped for cash that they are closing down government programs to benefit some of the most vulnerable groups in society. Children are losing music programs, art classes, after-school activities. Libraries are shortening hours, even closing down entire days, even entire branches. Funding for local arts and museums is being cut sharply, as tho it is the purpose of state governments to make this a crasser and stupider society, in which only the rich are entitled to have any access at all to the finer things in life. Programs to benefit the elderly, disabled, and impoverished are being squeezed and reduced. That is contemptible, in a country whose jingoists love to brag that the United States is "the richest country on Earth", even "in the history of the world".+The problem is that the Plutocratic Revolution carried off during the Reagan Years (the "Tax Reform Act of 1986") has produced a massive redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich, such that the bulk of the Nation's wealth is in the hands of the few. While wealth and income are not the same thing (wealth comprises, in addition to income, things like real estate, yachts, luxury cars, jewels, and gold in private hands), the quickest fix to the economic problems of the states is to increase income taxes on the wealthy. Surcharges on property taxes for mansions and their associated palatial estates are another approach that could be employed. The PROBLEM is that the wealthy warn any state that even THINKS of increasing taxes on the wealthy, that they will MOVE to another state.+Fortunately, there is a very quick fix to that problem: ALL the states should raise their income taxes AT THE SAME TIME and to THE SAME LEVEL, so there is nowhere in the United States that the irresponsible rich can flee to avoid income and wealth taxes.+What needs to happen is for the various states to stop trying to undercut each other by creating willful differentials in taxation levels for the express purpose of inducing the rich to move out of adjoining states, but to see that it is ultimately in nobody's interest to race to the bottom. The states must see each OTHER'S interests as THEIR OWN interest, and work TOGETHER to soak the rich, reduce income and wealth disparities across society, within states and between states, and fund all proper governmental services fully, without producing hardships for the vulnerable or the pressed working people — by soaking the rich. The rich are SO rich that having to pay taxes at the rates of 1978 (something like 78% as the rate on people in the top income bracket) would not hurt them. Oh, maybe they could then afford only 11 mansions or duplex apartments, 1 yacht, and 13 cars instead of 13 mansions or duplex apartments, 2 yachts, and 16 cars, but I wouldn't call that belt-titening, and I wouldn't take up a collection for the 'poor' obscenely rich.+The states' present beggar-thy-neighbor tax policies have contributed to the budgetary nitemares they are now facing. The fix is for the states to stop seeing each other as enemies, but to work together to sock it to the rich who have been sticking it to the states. In the immortal words from the Revolutionary War era (tho the exact coiner is disputed), in warning the separate colonies that disunion means defeat, "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." ALL the states should tell the rich who threaten to leave a state that raises their taxes, "The only place you're going is to go f*k yourself. We are ALL raising taxes on the rich. You can't run. You can't hide. The taxman cometh."+(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,405 — for Israel.)